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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
name change issue
i have been married for 30 - yes, count 'em! - thirty years. at the time, he was a very traditional, old world italian male. very patriarchal in thought and action. after we were married, he noticed that i did not change my name. eventually, it became a sore spot for him. finally, one day i said to him: if the tradition was reversed and the custom was for the man to take the woman's name, would you ever wake up, look in the mirror and say 'i am mike .....(my last name),,,, he said no, i am mike ...(his last name).... i replied, 'exactly'. he thought about that and never really mentioned it again. it does help that my name is five letters long and his is fourteen...but that wasn't the real reason. i am me, name and all. so, keep it if it makes you happy - drop it if you have a good reason. but do it because you want to, not because you 'have' to.
Re: name change issue
I was against changing my name, but it was really important to my husband that we share the same name. So we both hyphenated. However, after the wedding I found I didn't really care anymore... I slowly dropped "my" name from the hyphenated version and although legally my name is still hyphenated, I rarely use it. I tend to go by "his" name and he has followed suit.
I think what really changed my mind was the idea of having kids. If our son had a hyphenated name that he used, and married someone who also wanted to hyphenate, then there would be three names in the picture. Where does it end? A friend of mine recently married a man with a hyphenated name and I think it's funny that she now has a hyphenated name, but neither of the names are "hers" (she dropped her maiden name). I really want to have the same name as my kids and not have them take just his name, and vice-versa, so it just became easier to take his name. Besides, I like "his" last name better than "mine", it reflects our shared ethnic heritage better.
Am I a weirdo that I almost can't wait to change my name? My name has always been a source of annoyance--it's long, it's weird, no one can ever spell it or pronounce it... I've spent my entire life spelling it out for people ever so slowly... and usually multiple times a pop.
BF has a very simple, easy, 5-letter name. I think to myself so many times how much easier my life would be if instead of getting people to wrap their brains around my obnoxious name, I could just throw out his.
But I understand the desire to keep one's name. I guess I just don't draw my identity in that way.
Yeah, not sure what board this was supposed to be on, but...
I would never have married a man that would get "angry" or insist that I change my name. I'm sure it's not the only patriarchal thing he insists on, and I am not down with that. Seriously, who has to come up with a good enough argument to their own husband on why they should be allowed to keep the name they've had their whole life while the husband gets to keep his just because he has a penis? Because I said so should be good enough.
What bel138 said.
I can understand some people want to change their last name, and that is completely their choice. Obviously, for me, my last name is a huge portion of how I view myself.
The H and I talked about it a couple of times long before the wedding. He said whatever made me happy. Well, I liked my maiden name but I couldn't figure out how attached I was to it. Then, one day the husband and I were talking (about 3 months before the wedding) and came up with a great idea. My last name also works as a GREAT first name and it also works for a boy OR a girl... so we decided that I would take his last name and we would name our first child my last name as their first name! It seemed like a nice creative way to pass down the family name.
I was actually in the opposite situation. My DH suggested that i keep my maiden name to honor my dad. (he passed away right before our wedding). I'm an only child ,so i'm the last one to carry that name. We're not planning on having any children, so that wouldn't have been an issue.
In the end, as much as i love my dad, i couldn't keep his name. I wanted to take my H's name, not only because of tradition, but also because it was symbolic to me to start our life as a family.
...so we decided that I would take his last name and we would name our first child my last name as their first name! It seemed like a nice creative way to pass down the family name.
My sister and BIL did this. I have four sisters and no biological brothers so it's nice that our last name will continue on in my nephew.
I too had a last name that no one seemed to be able to spell... so it's so nice that my new last name is so easy.
I wavered about changing my last name... I can be such a feminist! But in the end I decided that I wanted to share my H's last name. It was a pain in butt to change though! Grrr.
On a side note: My H has a friend who changed his last name to his wife's.
I brought this thread up to BF over the weekend, and after throwing out the "whatever you want to do is fine with me," he said he'd thought about us both changing our names to a combo of our current last names... tacking the last half of my name onto his, to create "Pricemussen."
While he was joking, I vetoed it because it doesn't solve my problem of people not being able to say/spell my name half the time. But I thought it was cute... we use this name when we play arcade games together and have to enter a name for a high score.
I didn't want to change my name when I got married because I have the same first name as a friend and my DH's last name is the same as hers (no relation). So if I changed my last name, my friend and I would have the exact same full name.
After I moved away and didn't see her anymore, I decided to go through with the name change, and it actually only took me about 3 months to get used to it. I didn't drop my maiden name though. I kept it, so now I just have two middle initials.
My friend eventually got married, changed her last name, got divorced, changed it back, and got remarried. She didn't change her name with marriage #2.
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We're waiting to qualify so we can start the process of adopting from China. Crossing my fingers for my kiddo to be home by the end of 2015!
This! I love this post! My ex-f insisted I change my name. His mother on the other hand told me she will be the only "real" Mrs. Soandso. My current DBF said he has no preference but I would love to take his last name. His ex-w did not. He told me that he understands that I have had my name for 35 years that use it daily so he would leave it up to me but also would be honored if I did change it.
I had thought I would hypenate, and I still do on my drivers license (which makes me have a 14 letter name), but I more or less have changed my name to dh's.
Realistically, my last name is a patriarchial statement as well - - why did I get my dad's name? So I didn't feel keeping it was a feminist sign.
I guess I feel I am more than my name. I wouldn't be with a guy who couldn't accept that I wanted to change my name, but at the same time I had no problem making the switch.